A blog which charts our journey through the adoption process. The ups and downs, the process and the pondering, the self-exploration and the anticipation.
Hopefully these jottings will be a reassurance, and perhaps be a little enlightening, to others considering this particular journey or making their way through it themselves.

Thursday, 27 June 2013

Chapter 11 – The Second Preparation Day Pt 2 - The Curious Incident of the Playfully Accepting Empath In The Afternoon.

I know my P(L)ACE!

We returned from
our lunch break ready and raring for more. The afternoon session
started by introducing a concept which will become familiar to all
preparing for adoption... PACE.

Playful
– Accepting –
Curious – Empathic

Now
some people prefer to refer to this as PLACE rather than PACE – the
L standing for Loving.
Our trainer, Maureen pointed out that since “Loving” ought to be
a given in any case and in any circumstance then it didn’t count...
so PACE it was.

There’s no way
in which I can do justice to the elegance of the PACE concept (and
the whole of Dyadic Development Psychotherapy, of which it’s a
guiding principle) in the space available here. Safe to say, though,
there’s plenty of literature out there to draw on and both Caroline
Archer and Dan Hughes are not a bad place to start. All the books
mentioned in the previous blog use this as a foundation to their
approach.

One has to admire
the elegance of the technique in teasing out vital information from a
confused child unwilling or incapable of expressing how they feel or
grappling with the reasons for those confused and fractured feelings.

The
Playful approach of
holding circumstances lightly and even subverting them (in a
sometimes quite surreal manner) not so much to break down the
shields and barriers put up by the children as to dodge right around
them – brilliant!

Accepting
things as they are without apportioning blame and certainly without
compounding the complex guilt emotions already likely to be present
– fantastic!

Using
cleverly formulated questions and a Curious
approach to raise thoughts the child may be unwilling or unable to
express. Putting wise words in their mouths by pondering what they
must (in reality should or could) be thinking or feeling – superb!

Being
Empathic to the
child’s feelings and situation to guide how the discussions
developed and to find priority areas on which to work first –
amazing!

It’s a powerful
technique and we all finished the session quietly vowing to start
trying it out on our family, friends and work colleagues.

The ties that bind

Anyway, the
afternoon session closed with a particularly powerful group exercise
based on one of our case studies. Designed to illustrate just how
much of an upheaval adoption could be for a child, even in the most
benign of circumstances, it left all of us in the group profoundly
moved and with some deeper insight into what we were embarking on.

We stood in a
loose circle, each of us clutching an envelope while Maureen sat
crouched in the centre. We opened our envelopes and, one by one, read
out the character we would play in the role play. Birth mother,
foster carer, front-line child services social worker, adoptive
father... and so on. Doreen, walking around the perimeter of the
circle introduced the scenario. Freddie had been born to parents both
of whom struggled with dependency on drugs and alcohol. Added to that
his mother suffered from some learning difficulties. The was a
constant atmosphere in the house, with an ever-present threat of
domestic violence lurking in the wings. A red woollen thread was
passed between Freddie and each of his birth parents, each of whom
was asked to outline how they felt about being lumbered with a
constantly crying child they’d never planned in the first place.
These were the first of the ties by which Freddie was bound to those
around him. Freddie filled us in on how he was feeling, describing
his feelings, and his fears. Some neighbours had raised concerns that
Freddie wasn’t being properly looked after. Another red thread was
handed to Freddie’s front-line social worker. Other people appeared
on the scene, each adding their thoughts on their role in the
unfolding scenario while Freddie responded.

Freddie was
removed from his parents and placed in a foster care placement –
two more threads – and another social worker was assigned to assess
the way forward for Freddie. Another thread. Others entered the
picture, doctors, police and on and on... the network of threads grew
thicker and thicker. The odd thread was broken – the birth father –
who drifted off after several months of irregular contact. We were
informed that he had dropped off the social services radar and could
not be traced. Freddie moved to another foster placement and new
links were made and broken.

Finally the
decision was made to place Freddie for adoption. One by one the
threads which had bound him to his past (and to his origins) dropped
away, littering the floor until all that remained were four threads
between Freddie, his adoptive parents and the two social workers
dealing with his case. Finally those two threads were dropped to the
floor, leaving Freddie sitting nervously on the floor holding onto
the newly formed threads which linked him to his adoptive parents.
All other direct links with his past were gone but they still lay
there reminding everyone what he had gone through. Freddie remained
in the centre of the circle looking along the two remaining threads
into the eyes of his new adoptive parents with a mixed look of hope,
worry, regret and fear.

We stood in
silence for what seemed like an age but which was probably merely a
minute. All that remained was for the trainers to sum up briefly what
had been covered that day. And, frankly, that was about all we could
take. Questions for homework and our reflective diaries were
circulated and we all shuffled quietly out of the room and back to
our cars.

Half way through
the first stage of the process proper but with so far still to go.